Rick - I thought I would miss my TV more than I have. It surprised me how little I have missed it. I recently bought a Chromebook and I've found that to have much more utility in terms of entertainment and news gathering than a TV.

You are aboslutely right though, that there are some documentaries that really do beg for a large screen.

@Rick...."David: Your conversation is EXACTLY what went on in my head!"

Which proves that fools never differ!!! I must admit though that I have been lucky recently....the 3 Cordless phones have been good and actually have some quite nice features. I also bought a $44 mini-hifi the other day and it's been good too. But it's eary days yet, I need to get to the 1 year and 1day mark first.

Happy new year (it is in Australia already, you're still on New Year's eve I think...)

IF you can get the timer mechanism apart you will see a bunch of switch contacts operated by cams. Maybe you can adjust (bend slightly) the contact involved if it is not closing. This has worked for me in the past - I prefer the mechanical timers to the digital ones since they can often be repaired.

Whirlpools response was to send out a poorly designed untested filter which is to be installed at the AC input mains internal to the washer.

The problem is the unshielded and poorly designed microprocessor circuit board and the reference clock. If the Up and clock were properly grounded/shielded and low pass filtered then the harmonics which I have measured up to the 11th Fh with a specanalyzer, would not be present.

Unfortuunately The FCC has bigger isuues than sending out fines to washing machine Mfg's.

Maybe I should attempt to repair my old washer instead of getting a new one... I didn't realize that the new ones put out that much RFI. The old one has decided not to extract water on the regular cycle (but works on the permanent press cycle) I strongly suspect that something broke off the rotating mechanical dial... Of course finding repair parts might be a problem.

Rick, welcome to the real world! Don't feel bad, I too finally got rid of my CRT TVs earlier in 2013 but I was already into watching contents on tablets and smart phones in 2011 itself! Now that I have a flat screen, I watch TV even less because the handhelds consume all my bandwidth and waking hours.

I always questioned that FCC white goods exemption for appliances and permitting them to spew out excessive amounts of RFI.

Their is no excuse at all for anything spewing out this much undesired RFI as I also have excessive interference to my FM broadcast radio from this washer.

As to the Visio TV's, I wasn't aware of their design methodology or how cheap they could be designed/assembled but I have 3 Visios at home in various sizes and we have one very large screen Visio in the lunch room at work and we also have Visios in some work conference rooms and never a problem with any of them.

>I have found that my wonderful Whirlpool washer puts out ... enough RF to even jam the receive side of a local ham repeater that is only 5 miles away.

> Having taken a portable HF/VHF receiver down to the local appliance store I found that every washer that I tried out had sufficient RF spewing out it to the point where it would hold the squelch open on numerous radio frequency bands tested.

Interesting reading here in Section 15.103(d) of the following FCC Bulleting No. 62:

"Digital devices that are exempt from FCC technical standards.There are a number of digital devices that are exempt from the technical standards inPart 15. These are:

.... Digital devices used EXCLUSIVELY in appliances...."

As for intereference to the ham radio repeater and your moonbounce activities, you might have a case to get Whirlpool to clean up their emissions:

"Digital devices that are exempt from the technical standards in Part 15 are still notpermitted to cause harmful interference to any authorized radio communications.Accordingly, it is strongly recommended that the manufacturer of an exempt digitaldevice endeavor to have the device meet the technical standards anyhow."

Planning to go out for a 24mile cross country stomp tomorrow (boggy path and pathless bog) and then finish the tree felling on the better forecast for Thursday. A half century old epileptic aspersger with a chain saw and a bunch of 50 foot trees! Old sit harness, old rope and old crampons, ice axes have a tendency for pulling out so slings and rope are better.

Life does have a propensity for chucking the worse directly in one's face! Up to one's neck in a cesspit with someone readied to throw a bucket of vomit over one's head.

Regarding electonic longevity, and mechnical switches, still have a 2nd hand microwave that has breached 27 years, and my Dad and Iboth use it several times daily. Even still have the ICL7106 based multimeter that I designed and made 36 years ago, ~2.7mA constant current diode (low tempco) with an indelible ink hand drawn PCB. 0.1% resistors and Mylar caps were damn expensive back then.